Chris Heaphy’s new show Everyday Life has a remarkable fluidity about it. Richly coloured pours of acrylic are pushed and pulled over the teeth of Belgian linen with terrific confidence – with a degree of facility you’d expect after three decades of painting. His visual vocabulary including Maori heads, birds and feathers is present still, but is now part of the wider fabric of the painting itself – part of the fluid dance between painted ground and material support. The feeling is almost other-worldly. But the man’s an angler, a conjuror of dreams, of course.

Chris Heaphy has exhibited throughout Aotearoa for thirty years now. He is a graduate of the Canterbury School of Fine Arts, Ilam, and his work is in public and private collections across both main islands. He is part Ngai-Tahu and lives currently in Tamaki Makaurau, Auckland.

Jonathan Smart